1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a method for operating a two-line telephone controller so as to obtain a hold feature by which a currently active one of at least two telephone lines is placed and maintained in a hold state.
2. Description of the Related Art
Application No. 08/160,824 describes a computer controllable telephone control board which interfaces between a computer and multiple telephone lines so as to provide the computer with control over multiple telephone lines. In the embodiment described in application No. 08/160,824, two telephone lines are controlled, with the board allowing the telephone lines to be connected to the computer (via a fax/modem/voice chipset, so as to permit computer-controlled fax and modem data transfers, as well as to permit ordinary voice communication using a microphone and speakers connected to the computer), or to be connected to a conventional telephone handset (via a telephone handset interface so as to permit ordinary voice communication over the handset).
The telephone control board of application No. 08/160,824 includes a "force busy" relay which causes an unused telephone line to appear busy when the active telephone line is connected to the computer, such as for modem transfers. As described in application No. 08/160,824, this "force busy" feature is advantageous, especially when the computer is not attended by the user, since the caller will be confronted by a busy signal rather than a ringing signal that is never answered. When confronted by a busy signal, most callers will simply call back later; in fact, most conventional facsimile machines have an automatic re-dial feature which calls back later automatically.